Re: [malware-list] [RFC 0/5] [TALPA] Intro to alinuxinterfaceforonaccess scanning

douglas.leeder
2008-08-15T13:22:33Z

malware-list-bounces@dmesg.printk.net wrote on 2008-08-15 14:16:21:

> On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 08:57:48AM -0400, Press, Jonathan wrote:
> > That may just be a question of terminology. If the bits are construed
> > not as clean/dirty/infected, but as "I care about this file" vs. "I
> > don't care about this file" then the rubber gloves come off.
>
> Sure, as long as we're very clear about the semantics of the bits. If
> the bits are not persistent, but which get dropped if the inode is
> every evicted from memory, and it's considered OK, or even desirable,
> to rescan the file when it is brought back into memory, that may be
> acceptable to the rubber gloves folks (make people go through lots
> superflous of security scans, even when they are transfering betewen
> flights --- security is always more important than passengers'
> convenience!), but perhaps not to other applications such as file
> indexers, who would view rescanning files that have already been
> scanned, and not have been modified, as a waste of time, battery, CPU
> and disk bandwidth, etc.
>
> As I understand it, the TALPA proposal had non-persistent
> clean/dirty/infected bits.
>
> - Ted

Yes the current proposal has temporary markers in the in-memory
representation if inodes.

This is a problem for current anti-malware scanning, as virus data updates
come every few hours
(at which point the entire clean/infected state has to be cleared), so the
loss after a reboot is
limited.

--
Douglas Leeder

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